Sounds harsh I know, and I promise I did try and find a better way to say it. Having sad that I have noticed that a lot of the games I play with less than six players often include unrated players who sign up and never play. This drags the game out forever especially if there is more than one deadbeat in a single game which happens more than you might realize. Therefore, I would like to propose, if an unrated players signs up for a game and misses their first turn, after their 1st 24hour time limit expires, they are eliminated from the game after the first round.

This will improve the following aspects of the site by making it more attractive to play games with unranked players even if they deadbeat from the start

Also it will - Speeds the game up for the rest of the players without wasting 3,6, or more days waiting for a deadbeat to be eliminated- Encourages more rated players to play games with less than 6 players since the games will not drag on during the first several rounds waiting for the deadbeats non-starters to be eliminated- Will help mitigate massive changes in strategy when a new player shows up after the second round with numerous reinforcements.- Will keep unranked players who are trying to play from giving up because the games will provide more instant gratification due to increase in speed of round robin play- Provides incentive to engage in the start of a game- Unranked players will realized quickly they need to play or not sign up, providing more opportunity for other players who really want to play[/list]

I was not able to find discussion of this topic elsewhere, but if it was discussed and rejected I apologize for bringing it back up again.

Last edited by oceanfrank on Sat Dec 19, 2009 5:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'd agree with you on this. I'm a newbie and have already been in several games with multiple deadbeats, which is frustrating to no end. I'd add a couple suggestions to this. Perhaps having some means for a person to retire from a game, rather than just abandoning it and wasting 3 days of their opponents time waiting for a deadbeat to take a turn. It also would give an opportunity to honorably concede when a game is obviously over. Another related suggestion is for there to be a visible statistic for the number of games a person has been kicked out of, or even kick them out of all games.

def frustrating but doing this will encourage farming,Yes we have rules against farming butthat does not mean that some players would not ways around them.I could think of a fewways myself that I could get around the rule

Also something might of happened that made them leave miss the turn and come back later.Im sure that it happens a lot less than the player missing all three turns but to the playerswho accidentally miss their first turn this would be a bit unfair to them.

Fuzzylogic99 wrote:def frustrating but doing this will encourage farming,Yes we have rules against farming butthat does not mean that some players would not ways around them.I could think of a fewways myself that I could get around the rule

Also something might of happened that made them leave miss the turn and come back later.Im sure that it happens a lot less than the player missing all three turns but to the playerswho accidentally miss their first turn this would be a bit unfair to them.

anyways I dont see Lacks buying into this idea

It doesn't strike me as too harsh to toss a new recruit out of a game for missing the first turn. Have the system send a PM (or even an email if enabled) explaining what happened. The new recruit can always join another game.

I'd support this - I had one 8 player game with 4 deadbeats!! - but definitely needs an explanatory pm / email to them.

I think the problem is that quite a number of noobs will sign up and expect to be playing a game instantly (a la most other instant gratification vendors). It's been a while since I registered so can't remember if this was explained when I did sign up, but if not a few notes before the final "I accept the terms" button might be useful?

Or keep all noobs in a holding pen until they've completed their first few games If u wanted to be really nice, u could let them play 1 speed game out of their 4 just to whet their appetites

Was away for a bit....so it sounds like I am not alone in this quest. I was not sure about the farming concept, sound interesting though. However there was another point made. Many people sign up and leave because it takes too long. And a lot of the reason it takes too long is because of deadbeats signing up and quiting immediately. If they were removed, the game would go a lot faster and possibly keep new recruits. Myself, I try to avoid games with less than 6 people to avoid sitting around for several days just to play my 2nd and third round.

oceanfrank wrote:Was away for a bit....so it sounds like I am not alone in this quest. I was not sure about the farming concept, sound interesting though. However there was another point made. Many people sign up and leave because it takes too long. And a lot of the reason it takes too long is because of deadbeats signing up and quiting immediately. If they were removed, the game would go a lot faster and possibly keep new recruits. Myself, I try to avoid games with less than 6 people to avoid sitting around for several days just to play my 2nd and third round.

Funny, I stick mostly to games with just three or four people for the same reason. If you get into an 8-player game, it can be a long time between turns, if a few of those people take their time. But to the point of the matter, I do think it is not a great hardship to show up for at least the first turn of a game on time.

Ocean,What happens if people actually have a life and manage to miss the first turn in a game? I've done it before. It's not fair to regular players, that ended up not getting a chance to get to a computer, and instead automatically got kicked.

JCKing wrote:Ocean,What happens if people actually have a life and manage to miss the first turn in a game? I've done it before. It's not fair to regular players, that ended up not getting a chance to get to a computer, and instead automatically got kicked.

JCKing wrote:Ocean,What happens if people actually have a life and manage to miss the first turn in a game? I've done it before. It's not fair to regular players, that ended up not getting a chance to get to a computer, and instead automatically got kicked.

They join a new game and make sure they take their turn this time, so as not to ruin it for others - particlarly new recruits - likely to be in the same game + itching for a turn.The OP was not aiming it at general missed turns just time-wasters I think

I think there are occasions where a first turn kick out is valid - such as if they are the last player to join and it's manual deployment. I've had 3 3-player games ruined recently by new players joining then never moving. I would however only apply it to new players who have never made a move.Personally, I would like to see this:New non-member players (freemiums) are only allowed to join games against other new players, until they have completed (say) 3 consecutive games in which they have taken at least 90% of their turns. So if they complete 2, then get kicked out, they start from zero again.One could add to that that if they are kicked out of 2 consecutive games, they are automatically kicked out of all other active games.

Also I would say that 'unqualified' players are not allowed to join games with the same players. This would prevent a) the easiest form of newbie farming and b) people setting up multiple new accounts.

Okay so it's perhaps harsh on other new players who are genuinely trying to get interested and play, to burden them with all the no-shows, but at least they'll get some easy points

If there are genuine reasons for non-attendance then I'm happy for them to be able to appeal for reinstatement, but they should go through the qualification process again.

I am one of those who couldn't give a toss about how the sad people boost their rankings illegitimately - do they really think we're impressed by someone cheating their way to captain? - but I am concerned about time-wasters who might ruin the site.

I guess for paying members it would be different - they've paid, they can do what they like. But all the problems that I've had have been with no pay, no play

clangfield wrote:I think there are occasions where a first turn kick out is valid - such as if they are the last player to join and it's manual deployment. I've had 3 3-player games ruined recently by new players joining then never moving. I would however only apply it to new players who have never made a move.Personally, I would like to see this:New non-member players (freemiums) are only allowed to join games against other new players, until they have completed (say) 3 consecutive games in which they have taken at least 90% of their turns. So if they complete 2, then get kicked out, they start from zero again.One could add to that that if they are kicked out of 2 consecutive games, they are automatically kicked out of all other active games.

Also I would say that 'unqualified' players are not allowed to join games with the same players. This would prevent a) the easiest form of newbie farming and b) people setting up multiple new accounts.

Okay so it's perhaps harsh on other new players who are genuinely trying to get interested and play, to burden them with all the no-shows, but at least they'll get some easy points

If there are genuine reasons for non-attendance then I'm happy for them to be able to appeal for reinstatement, but they should go through the qualification process again.

I am one of those who couldn't give a toss about how the sad people boost their rankings illegitimately - do they really think we're impressed by someone cheating their way to captain? - but I am concerned about time-wasters who might ruin the site.

I guess for paying members it would be different - they've paid, they can do what they like. But all the problems that I've had have been with no pay, no play

Big problem arises from this. with so few new recruits at any given time, games will never start and that just continues to the original issue, games moving in a timley manner. Because of the few players and available games, new recruits will be MORE likley to leave due to boredom.I think that somthing should be implemented that a newb can instantly join into a game the second they register, even if its an addon to the site where they can play against an AI just so they can get a feel for the game. But whatever it is, get them to understand the game on their first visit.

This is a very simple suggestion and it should be implemented because almost every time new recruit joins my game, he plays the first turn (or not even that) and then never shows up again. This will make most of the games much, much faster, because in a casual game you'll actually have to wait 72 hours for that inactive player to get kicked.

I don't have to write conclusions or anything else because this suggestion is simple and clear. This game would be more enjoyable without new players that stop playing after joining a game.